Korax

Rogue Legacy

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I normally dislike grinding when a game forces you to do it because of a difficulty ramp or when the design makes grinding the path of least resistance.  However, in the case of Rogue Legacy, I actually enjoyed it because of how it's integrated into the game.  I never felt like I was grinding in the same sense as other games.  Normally when I think of grinding, I think of repetitive actions to raise stats to get stronger, unlock new abilities, or upgrade gear.  While those things are true in Rogue Legacy, I also felt like I was gaining proficiency in the gameplay as well, which is usually not the feeling I have while grinding.  I suppose if you don't really like the gameplay or can't seem to get better at it the game wouldn't be as fun, but I had a great time.

 

And Tanukitsune, to your question about maxing the stats and how easy it would make the game, the answer is yes up to a point.  When you max your stats, you can become a sword swinging magic slinging whirlwind of death that can easily clear out the map.  But once you start getting into the NG+++ range, that stops being true because you hit a stat plateau while the enemies continue to get stronger.  Grace runes will help for a while, but eventually every room becomes death.

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I normally dislike grinding when a game forces you to do it because of a difficulty ramp or when the design makes grinding the path of least resistance.  However, in the case of Rogue Legacy, I actually enjoyed it because of how it's integrated into the game.  I never felt like I was grinding in the same sense as other games.  Normally when I think of grinding, I think of repetitive actions to raise stats to get stronger, unlock new abilities, or upgrade gear.  While those things are true in Rogue Legacy, I also felt like I was gaining proficiency in the gameplay as well, which is usually not the feeling I have while grinding.  I suppose if you don't really like the gameplay or can't seem to get better at it the game wouldn't be as fun, but I had a great time.

That was actually the exact opposite for me. Then again, I usually like options to have a choice, not to experience them all and that hit pretty hard here. At some point I figured out that all I really needed was a Spellsword, preferrably with Flame Barrier, for bosses and a Lichqueen/-king with Crow Storm for anything else. The repetitive nature of some of the achievements and upgrade system notwithstanding, that and a significant dislike for the Knave and the last class turned having a choice at the heir selection screen into a mechanic I'm not sure I'm too thrilled about. It's like you're having some amount of impact, which makes getting stuck with an heir you're not too thrilled about even more shaded in meh. Being stuck with a spelunker with muscle weakness because your other candidates either had vertigo or were farsighted (legitimately stomachturning in my case) on a run that won't really lead to anything makes it rather tempting to just give in to carelesness. And at that point you're not far from grinding the heir select screen. Maybe not something like levelgrinding in the traditional sense, but it did remind me of old CRPGs and rerolling stats at character creation for hours.

I just might have my priorities wrong and should be more accepting of that challenge, but I couldn't help but make comparisons to stuff like Binding of Isaac or Dungeons of Dredmor. What you start with there matters only to a certain degree, the interesting part is what it develops into. Rogue Legacy, on the other hand, stretches progression over the entire game and almost entirely eliminates it from an individual run. Which isn't necessarilly bad, but it went a bit weird for me personally, when I was rooting for that Crow Storm Lich to roll, because I knew I'd be in for a favorable run, with a certainty I felt I shouldn't have had.

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That's a fair enough assessment.  It's certainly not a game for everyone, and before I played it, I probably would have said it's not my kind of game either.  I'm not a big fan of permadeath stuff (although I admit it's starting to grow on me) and I also like having a specific choice.  But Rogue Legacy made me adopt a "what the heck, let's give it a try" attitude and it worked extremely well.  I eventually honed in on a particular class/trait/spell combination that worked best for me (Spellsword with a chakram specifically) and those were the most productive runs from a gold standpoint, but I liked the change each new heir presented.  If I got to pick a specific class from the start, I would probably have gotten bored much faster because I would have picked one class and stuck with it, never trying the rest like I normally do with games that let me.

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Yeah, I can see your point, there is definitely something to be said for being slightly forced to try new things. And I am still undecided whether I enjoyed the game. It is seriously addictive, though, I will say that, and it's the first game ever I cleared out in terms of achievements, something I usually never bother to do. So there is definitely something there.

Reflecting on it a bit it just feels as if it is working against itself in a few places and the heir randomness is not a bad example of that. On paper I really enjoy the random element, upgrades, however, aren't random and that's just one of these things. The upgrade path being a deliberate player choice at some point just feels like being sabotaged by the randomness of heir classes. Such as in rolling a triple Hokage after dumping all your money into Crit%. Random is good when it's across the board, but those instances merely felt like the game trolling to me. Same with fairy chests that are unreachable without specific runes, which cements this vibe of being stuck with an underachieving character. Then again, as you said, that type of challenge might actually be the charme that I am missing.

And it's not like I disliked the game, it just feels like a solid foundation that needs a sequel to finetune the concept a bit further.

I guess what I'm saying is they probably should make a trilogy afaik.

Rogue Legacy 2 - Return of Rogue and Rogue Origins gogogo.

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I know how you feel about getting unreachable fairy chests or buffing up a stat only to get several classes in a row that don't benefit at all.  But on the flip side, each time I had the exact right combination of runes or magic that let me get a fairy chest, it felt really awesome.  That sort of describes the game as a whole to me.  You will suck most of the time, but every now and then you get an amazing run and it feels really good.  Those moments made me keep at it long enough that they started to become the norm for me.

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Alright, I bought this in the Steam sale and started playing it. I'm a little while in, but all I want to say here is that Rogue Legacy is the evilest game ever. They won't allow you to stop, and they impose it by making you choose and start your next hero before you can cash in your hard earned gold from the previous run. It's an insidious trick to never allow the player a nice, closed moment to stop playing. Dastardly!

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you can stop before selecting a character... but yeah, I had the same experience

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There's an update coming.

http://cellardoorgames.com/blog/?p=896

 

Hey guys,

Patch 1.2 of Rogue Legacy should be coming out in the next few days. We’ll have more detailed notes when it gets released, but for now we thought we’d give you a quick look into the content we’ll be adding into the game.

New Boss Remixes

- 5 new bosses will be available to battle. These battles will be true tests of skills, and should be available to people at all parts of the game. These are not casual battles, and only the best will succeed.

New Class

- A new secret class can be unlocked by players. It’s pretty uber.

More Traits

- 3 New traits will be added to the game to add some extra variety to character generation.

More Rooms

- The map pool has been increased by 10% to add a touch more variety to your game.

More Achievements

- For the completionisters.

Fixes and Updates

- General balance tweaks and modifications to the game logic to make everything a little smoother.

- Also the Haggle skill will now actually be useful.

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That certainly addresses many of the minor complaints I had about the game.  I was hoping that there would be even more traits, or that some of the existing traits would get changed to have more than a cosmetic impact.  I would love it if virtually every trait had a significant impact (positive or negative). 

 

Actually, the thing I really wanted was for traits to stack for 2-3 generations, so that it was more than a one-off impact on the game and that there might be the chance for some bonkers crap to happen if you combine the right/wrong traits (like what would happen if a descendent had both the Giant and Dwarf traits). 

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Strangely enough, I'm not that interested. The game was fine for me, but already a little on the long side. All in all I spent about 20 hours with it to finish the game, and at that point it was slightly outstaying its welcome. I liked it, for sure, but it also made me really pine for a solid Castlevania experience, that has just a lot more polish and detail and secrets and atmosphere to it.

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That certainly addresses many of the minor complaints I had about the game.  I was hoping that there would be even more traits, or that some of the existing traits would get changed to have more than a cosmetic impact.  I would love it if virtually every trait had a significant impact (positive or negative). 

 

Actually, the thing I really wanted was for traits to stack for 2-3 generations, so that it was more than a one-off impact on the game and that there might be the chance for some bonkers crap to happen if you combine the right/wrong traits (like what would happen if a descendent had both the Giant and Dwarf traits). 

 

I want traits to not be random and there to be some genetics involved. In otherwords, I want to look at the character selection screen, see a guy with really good stats and exactly the skills I want, but also with color blindness, and be aware that choosing that character might mean I won't be seeing color for several generations.

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I'm ok with the traits being random and not genetic because I fear it would lead to some weird eugenics thing where offspring with perceived deficiencies are discarded in favor of their stronger bretheren.

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I guess I play Crusader Kings too much, because that sounds awesome to me.

 

Edit: In a video game I mean.

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I'm ok with the traits being random and not genetic because I fear it would lead to some weird eugenics thing where offspring with perceived deficiencies are discarded in favor of their stronger bretheren.

 

I think, if it were done carefully, it could introduce interesting scenarios where you pick and play otherwise sub-optimal characters with desirable traits in hopes of increasing their incidence in later generations.

 

I guess I play Crusader Kings too much, because that sounds awesome to me.

 

Edit: In a video game I mean.

 

There's no way to "like" things on this forum, so I'm just quoting you too, Dewar.

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I've been playing a lot of Rogue Legacy lately (and still haven't finished with it), so this update is good timing for me.

 

But I'm not sure I really care. By that I mean, I'll keep playing it, I'm sure, and enjoy the new content, probably, but ehhhh the game is mostly just "dodge bullets, kill dudes". It's a bullet-hell shmup in quasi-roguelike platforming format. There's not much to it beyond that. It's fun on a purely mechanical level, but it's not very interesting. The random level generation is boring because all that really means is the rooms are organized differently. The rooms themselves aren't actually ever different. Some enemies are, I guess, but. EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

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I bet you guys are excited about Massive Chalice then.

 

Incredibly excited actually. SRPG is one of my favorite genres.

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I've been playing a lot of Rogue Legacy lately (and still haven't finished with it), so this update is good timing for me.

 

But I'm not sure I really care. By that I mean, I'll keep playing it, I'm sure, and enjoy the new content, probably, but ehhhh the game is mostly just "dodge bullets, kill dudes". It's a bullet-hell shmup in quasi-roguelike platforming format. There's not much to it beyond that. It's fun on a purely mechanical level, but it's not very interesting. The random level generation is boring because all that really means is the rooms are organized differently. The rooms themselves aren't actually ever different. Some enemies are, I guess, but. EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Even if the rooms are set pieces, plenty of them are legit difficult in their layout. Especially when there's spikes involved.

 

Usually when game randomness is like this, it annoys me. But for some reason it doesn't bother me in Rogue Legacy. Dungeons of Dredmor and Diablo and other such games though, the room layouts are just like... okay I get it eventually.

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I didn't say they were easy. I just said they weren't interesting.

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Oh man, I wanted to beat the game before new content but I'm stuck on the final boss.

Right here. That's me in a nutshell at this point. The last few times I've played have just been grinding gold to upgrade stuff so I might stand a better chance.

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